


Cloister the Second

by Diminua



Series: Plain Forms [3]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: apologies for this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diminua/pseuds/Diminua
Summary: And here begins the book of Cloister the Second, son of he who was the son of Cloister the great, who gaveth of his life so that we may live, and to protect and succour the holy mother Frankenstein, who is the mother of all the peoples of the Cats, yea, believer and infidel alike.





	Cloister the Second

 

_And here begins the book of Cloister the Second, son of he who was the son of Cloister the great, who gaveth of his life so that we may live, and to protect and succour the holy mother Frankenstein, who is the mother of all the peoples of the Cats, yea, believer and infidel alike._

 

Bexley Lister’s youngest son comes into the world early, before either of his parents have picked a name, a tiny, pale, scrat of a boy who no one really expects to survive, bundled up in a silver blanket in the medibay in Starbug while his parents and grandparents make the dash back to Red Dwarf and better medical facilities. Cat – their cat, the original Cat – assures them that if the baby ape makes it that far then things will be ready for them.

 

_And so it came to pass that the righteous, sailing on through the storm of the skies to Fuschal, after many years searching and many plagues and obstacles, found that which they had lost, the ship in the sky which was the birthplace of their kind, and they spake thus: This ship in the sky is our true Home, the Home of our kind, and we will live out all our days here, in peace with the prophets and creatures of the world Bearth below where the great and mighty Cloister bade us come to him, and even now lives with his kind. And so this too came to pass._

 

‘He needs a name.’ Lister says at last, breaking the silence that has fallen over the midsection. Although no-one wants to spell it out they all know what he means. There’s something about a name that makes a person a person, and his grandson isn’t leaving this world without one.

‘How about Louis?’ Rimmer suggests at last. ‘After the French kings.’

 

_And lo! a great and glorious city came to be, with many many Cats, until even a hundredfold the number that had returned to the ship in the sky that is their ancestral Home._

 

By the time it is clear the boy will confound them all and live only his mother and Rimmer are pronouncing it ‘Lew-ie’. Everyone else likes ‘Lew-is’ and then, even more irritatingly, he becomes Lex.

‘Lex Lister.’ Rimmer grumbles. ‘Lex Lister! It sounds like something from a cartoon.’

‘Well it’s Lex and Bex isn’t it?’ Lister tells him, mostly because he wants to see the expression on Rimmer’s face. ‘Never mind love, could be worse.’

 

_And lo! So it came to pass that a great trembling overcame the ship in the sky that is the ancestral Home of the Cats, and the sirens gave voice and the great head cried aloft for the Cats to heed and hasten to the room where all the works of the great ship could be overseen and restored, but the Cats were within their city and their speed was not so great that any could race to the great room in time, and the very kittens trembled in their baskets in terror._

 

As if making up for lost time Lex Lister eats and eats and eats, but he doesn’t get big. Just rounder faced and more energetic. It’s pretty obvious that he’s never going to be tall like his brothers and dad and uncle. Instead he’s got all their energy and then some. He drives Rimmer mental, but he’s easily his favourite honorary grandson. Bright and mutinous and optimistic and generous to a fault. Even foreknowledge can’t make Rimmer protect himself by holding him at arm’s length, or stop himself from hoping.

It’s one of the few things he and Lister never discuss. That this boy, through his teens and into his twenties, is so very like Dave Lister used to be.

 

_But lo! there was then at that time a descendant of the great prophet Cloister who was he who first gaveth of his life and freedom to protect and succour the holy mother Frankenstein, and the descendant of the great prophet made all haste to the room where all the works of the great ship could be restored._

 

Rimmer is too old to run, but he’s having a damn good crack at it. Lex has, of course, sprinted off like the young gazelle he is, feet hammering over the metal staircase in his heavy boots, that ridiculous deerstalker he just found in the old bunkroom on his head, heedless of all Rimmer can do to call him back.

 

_And lo, the descendant of the great prophet Cloister who was he who first gaveth of his life and freedom to protect and succour the holy mother Frankenstein, restored the ship in the sky and saveth the city of the Cats and all the Cats and kittens therein, and he too gaveth of his life so that we may live, and he is known forever to all the people of the Cats as Cloister the second, being the son of he who is the son of Cloister the Great._

_And here endeth the book of Cloister the second._

**Author's Note:**

> This belongs in the same 'verse as _Pencils, Plain Forms_ and _Three Million Years and Counting_ from back in the old lj days. You don't have to read that to read this, but here is a link in case anyone wants to.: https://diminua.livejournal.com/19347.html


End file.
